


my lover's the sunlight

by haipollai



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Getting Together, M/M, Tiny Punk Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2259765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What are you-?"</p>
<p>"You know the thing about your roommate dying and so you get A’s for the rest of the semester is a lie right?" Bucky pours out the whiskey into a cup stolen from the cafeteria and shoves it into Steve’s hand. "All you get is some bullshit ‘poor you’ and a new roommate." He drops back down into his bunk with his homework. "Already got used to you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	my lover's the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> title from take me to church  
> first part posted on tumblr forever ago

The first time, Bucky wraps the jacket around him without thinking twice. He’s shivering from sitting in the rain and if Bucky was more like his mom he’d tsk at Steve for doing something so stupid. Instead he shoves him onto his bed, throws the leather jacket at him along with a few blankets and goes to fish out the whiskey from under the mattress. 

Steve stares at him, somehow almost lost in the jacket. 

"What are you-?"

"You know the thing about your roommate dying and so you get A’s for the rest of the semester is a lie right?" Bucky pours out the whiskey into a cup stolen from the cafeteria and shoves it into Steve’s hand. "All you get is some bullshit ‘poor you’ and a new roommate." He drops back down into his bunk with his homework. "Already got used to you."

He can hear Steve’s teeth chattering interrupted only by him drinking the whiskey. His mohawk has flopped forward into his eyes and he looks-

He looks pathetic.

Bucky closes his textbook and rolls onto his side to look at Steve. They’ve been roommates for three months, holidays are coming up soon and it feels like he’s barely even talked to Steve. Steve who wears torn up jeans that never fit right on his skinny hips, and band shirts old enough they might have actually been bought on tour and not a Hot Topic.

"What were you doing out there?" He asks.

Steve’s eyes dart to him. “Proposed tuition hikes. Cover some bullshit gym.” He stares down at his hands, his fingertips practically blue from cold. “Can barely afford school as it is.”

"You’re a scholarship kid?" Bucky asks and immediately grimaces at how uncaring that sounds. "I mean. I am too I didn’t realize-"

"You’re a jock. Of course they’re giving you cash."

"Don’t have to be an ass."

Steve sucks on his lower lip. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m uh officially here as an art student. Covers about half my costs. As long as I can keep my grades up.”

"You skip like half your classes. You’re really not sneaky."

"Not very good at them. I stick to what I am good at."

Bucky frowns. “So you’ll flunk out in a year and waste all that money you’re getting?”

"What the fuck do you-" Steve’s immediately up on his feet, hands clenched tightly into fists. 

"I can help," Bucky offers quickly. He’s seen Steve get angry, at some poor idiot down the hall who was mocking Steve for having a hard time on the stairs. For someone so small he has a nasty temper and isn’t scared about following it up with a punch.

"For what?" Steve’s eyes narrow suspiciously.

"I’m in this Poly Sci class. Thought I’d take a few cause I was thinking business and business and government are all tied up, but some of it is a mess to me." Bucky says.

"Tutoring trade?" Steve says, slowly smiling as he thinks about it. "Sure. I’m game." He holds out the cup. "More whiskey first."

"Demanding," Bucky grumbles. Steve shrugs and keeps the cup out until Bucky adds more. 

-

Steve tends to be a bit scattered, Bucky sometimes finds his art supplies in Bucky’s things and he gets used to his pencils missing so starts stashing them to keep them safe. At least both of them prefer to spend weekends going out, Bucky with his team, Steve with whoever he’s friends with.

Bucky was expecting someone loud and obnoxious, always up on their soap box when he first met Steve. He’d been wearing worn out jeans and an old t-shirt, it was a sharp difference from Bucky in his new clothes his sister had helped him get. Bucky didn’t expect to be anything like friends, especially once the poster went up on Steve’s side about a rally downtown and news paper clippings about shit happening all over the world. Bucky had a Fast and Furious poster.

He took some comfort that first day that at least Steve didn’t smell.

He glowered at Bucky a lot, but Bucky could live with some dirty looks, he had survived high school. 

Their circles are so different except when they’re together in their room. Bucky doesn’t quite know when it becomes their space, passing bottles of alcohol back and forth, as they both sit on the floor in their own half moons of papers and books. And somehow, despite all their walls, they get along.

-

Bucky runs into Steve behind the gym, his cheeks looking even more gaunt as he sucks on a cigarette. 

"Don't you have asthma?" Bucky frowns down at him but Steve actually looks sheepish as he stubs it out. 

"Hard to quit."

"You actually try?"

Steve laughs but there's no humor in it. "Only when I run out of money for them."

Bucky bites his lip, trying not to judge but his life had been sports since he was six. He can't imagine smoking. Steve tilts his head and Bucky gets the feeling that's he's seeing straight through him.

"You're such a brat," Steve finally says and hunches up in his leather jacket. "I got class."

"Which one?" Bucky doesn't know why he asks, they're roommates because they were assigned together. They're barely friends. 

"Why you gonna escort me?" 

Bucky shrugs. "We might be walking the same way."

Steve looks down at his feet. "Uh it's psych, in Howard Hall. Towards the dorms." He scuffs his toe before seeming to make a decision and starts walking. Bucky falls into step beside him. "Aren't you worried about being seen with me?"

"What's to worry about? Cause you're not a sports junkie?" He shrugs, his teammates sometimes laugh at him being roomed with someone like Steve. Sometimes Bucky's joined in, giving them fodder about protest signs and seemingly inane tattoos.. 

"Who knows, maybe I'll give you cooties." 

"We're not five." He shrugs out of his letterman and drapes it over Steve's shoulders. When he first met Steve, with his hair purple and blue at the time like a vivid bruise, in a leather jacket and dirty jeans, he assumed Steve would smell. He looked like a homeless fuck up but Bucky was surprised to find Steve more of a stickler about cleanliness than him. "You're like a stick. How the fuck does the wind not knock you over?"

Steve is staring up at him, looking conflicted and Bucky swallows hard to shove back his panic. "Long practice staying on my feet," Steve finally says with a small crooked smile.

Bucky finds himself smiling back. "You are a stubborn asshole."

Steve bows with a flourish, almost throwing Bucky's jacket over his head. "It's a well cultivated skill." They're in front of his building and Bucky realizes he actually enjoyed this, talking with him. Steve shrugs out of the jacket and holds it out. "Thanks for the disguise." 

He disappears inside and Bucky tries to pretend he's not fucked. 

-

"I was thinking," Steve's voice is quiet, almost scared. Bucky rolls over in his bunk to look at him, almost invisible under his blanket. "You're not a bad guy Barnes."

"Thanks?"

-

Bucky knows he's drunk, he lost track if how many he'd had at the bar. There had been a lot of shots but he'd ditched early. It was too hard to fake after awhile, especially while drunk.

"Bucky?" Steve is sitting cross legged on his bed, working on something on his computer with a half empty bottle of whiskey halfway to his lips. 

Fuck. 

Steve sets the bottle carefully down on the floor. "You ok?"

"I-" he ran a hand through his hair, realizing he's been standing in the middle of the room staring. "Fuck."

"You said that already." His lips quirk into a smile. Bucky's noticed the curve of his cheek and how red his lips are and how there's strength in his arms despite how thin they are. He's noticed all of that but usually he's sober. 

Usually Steve's cheeks are not tinged pink from alcohol and he's usually wearing more than boxers and a thin t-shirt. Bucky doesn't really think about it as he zooms in on Steve. His lips taste of his whiskey as they part with almost no pressure. 

And then Steve's hand comes up and shoves. Bucky's feet tangle up and he crashes into his bunk. He finally lifts his head to stare at Steve who is staring straight back. "What-"

"I'm not gonna be some fucking gay experiment." He shoves aside his computer and looks like he might storm out but Bucky is proud of himself for at least managing to get up and catch him. 

"Not an experiment. Trust me." He drops to his knees and Steve's eyes get wide. 

-

Bucky wakes up groggy and feeling awful but there's a warm body with sharp elbows still in bed with him. 

"Steve?"

Steve twists around to blink up at him. "You ok?"

"Am I ok?"

"Mr tough athlete." He slips out of bed and grabs Bucky's jacket. It falls to his thighs and covers his hands and bucky wants to fuck him in it. His mohawk is down, long blond hair falling into his eyes. "Having sex with your very make roommate. No freak outs?"

"I did say this wasn't an experiment right?" He props his head up on his hand. 

"So, does this mean we can go again? Preferably when you’re sober.”

-

Steve likes sex. Bucky’s caught off guard because Steve never seems to _like_ things. He has his causes, skipping classes to go to rallies and protests, volunteering his time to design fliers and posters. But he seems to treat those almost like a job. Something he has to do.

Bucky isn’t even surprised when Steve casually mentions he’s been arrested four times since he was fifteen.

“Isn’t there some kind of three time rule?” Bucky asks. Steve’s half leaning out the window with a cigarette. They were studying, or Bucky was, Steve has his books open but his notes are full of more doodles than words.

“Twice were warnings. Cop wanting to scare me onto the right path.” He shrugs. “Adult now, so I guess my record’s clean.” He comes back inside, his cigarette done and even with the window open, Bucky can smell the nicotine lingering around him. “Sharon says I’m too tiny for any judge to wanna send me to jail.”

“You’re insane.”

“Yea, everyone says so.” He’s gone quiet and thoughtful, something Bucky is noticing more, or maybe Steve’s letting Bucky see that side of him more. They fuck and somewhere in between the sex they’re becoming friends. 

Bucky closes his textbook and Steve is suddenly there, leaning across his desk. Bucky pulls him over so he’s seated on the desk, his feet resting on the arms of Bucky’s chair.

“Let’s not talk about my record.”

-

There’s a lot they don’t talk about. They don’t really talk about next year. Steve suddenly has to buckle down at the end of the year to get through his classes to keep his scholarships. Bucky helps him when he can but it’s off season so he suddenly has to motivate himself to continue training on top of studying for finals.

And everything just ends one day. Steve’s gone, shooed out in a rush of leather and blond hair and whatever few items he owned into a friend’s old pickup.

Bucky’s taxi comes an hour later to take him to the airport for his flight back to Indiana.

-

A lot of his team end up in frats, but Bucky starts his second year back in the dorms. His roommate is already there, theres a blanket on one of the beds and a duffle shoved haphazardly underneath. He doesn’t see a person or really anything personal.

He’s shoving his clothes into the dresser when he hears the door open.

“Hey Bucky.”

He turns and Steve is leaning against the door, with nothing on but a towel around his waist. There’s new swirls of ink over his arms and onto his chest and Bucky stubbornly doesn’t look. “You were planning this.”

Steve grins but it’s cut short by a coughing fit. “Sorry. But yea, kind of.” He flushes. “I requested you as a roommate. Figured it would be easier than figuring out how to live with someone else. Is that ok?”

“Are you really standing there in a fucking towel asking me that?”

Steve smirks and his fingers play with the knot. He hasn’t gotten bigger over the summer, still too skinny and his fingers look long and fragile. There’s more ink though creating elaborate designs across his shoulders and down his chest. Bucky had never thought he’d be into tattoos but he never thought he’d be into someone like Steve. “I could take the towel off,” he offers.

Bucky doesn’t need more of an invitation to start stripping out of his clothes. “Come on, been fucking surrounded by family for months, need some relief.”

He can hear Steve’s laugh while he has his shirt over his head and then Steve is there in front of him, completely naked.

-

In November Bucky gets a call from an unknown number in the middle of sociology who will not stop calling so he slips out to answer.

Thirty minutes later he’s in a hospital room, staring at Steve who is glaring at Sharon for calling him. “I’m fine,” Steve hisses. “I don’t need-” he waves a hand around vaguely. Maybe indicating the hospital room or maybe just Bucky. 

“Fuck that Rogers,” Sharon glares back, completely unintimidated by Steve. “You are sick.”

“I’m always sick.”

Sharon stubbornly turns to Bucky, who still isn’t sure why he’s here. “If he’s left alone he’ll check himself out. He’s got pneumonia. I know you have-”

“I’ll stay,” Bucky says, that’s all he needs to know. Sharon smiles gratefully and kisses his cheek as she leaves. He cautiously claims her empty chair.

“She shouldn’t have called you,” Steve says softly, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I need to-” A coughing fit interrupts him and he curls in on himself pathetically. Bucky knows it won’t help but he shrugs out of his jacket, his nice leather one with the varsity V stitched on and drapes it over him.

Steve blinks at him, for a second Bucky thinks he’s going to refuse it but then he just curls up underneath it as much as he can. He looks so small and fragile and Bucky feels painfully useless. He leans in and kisses Steve’s cheek. “No dying yet. Ok?” 

Steve manages a laugh though his throat is obviously raw. “Yea sure.”

-

Bucky regrets not paying that much attention to Steve that first year, he knew Steve got sick, he had asthma and allergies and broke his bones easily but Bucky was still trying to earn his place on the team. He had his studies and even when he was helping Steve out, they still lived pretty separate lives.

Bucky takes shifts with Sharon and Steve’s other friend Sam, sitting by his bed to make sure he cooperates. He lets Steve hold onto the jacket.

-

“Hey Bucky,” Steve darts through a group of people on the quad to catch up with him. Bucky’s with a few guys from the team, just to get lunch. Steve grabs his sleeve, completely ignoring everyone else. “Please tell me you’re free tonight.”

“Um maybe?”

He can feel his friends watching them, staring and judging and Bucky doesn’t know what to do under their scrutiny. “I have a test tomorrow. And um I might have spent the past two days at that thing in front of City Hall.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, as soon as he’d heard of the protest he knew Steve was probably there. “You could bring your textbooks with you. But yea, I’ll be around.”

Steve grins and for a second Bucky thinks he’s going to kiss him. Part of him prays desperately that Steve doesn’t kiss him, not in public, not in front of his teammates. Instead he just darts away, disappearing easily among the people just milling about.

“That’s your roommate isn’t it?” 

“Yea,” Bucky shrugs and they start walking again.

“Looks like a fuck up.”

Bucky stares down at his feet, not sure what to say. Not sure he can even argue against it really. Whatever time Steve doesn’t spend in the hospital he seems to spend out on protests, Bucky knows he only avoids arrest so he can keep his scholarship and he refuses to keep his hair a normal color. None of his clothes are new, and he never talks about parents or family.

Steve is broken bones and tattoos, who only cares about his art and political science and even then only sometimes. Bucky laughs and shrugs. “Whatever, not like I’m married to the guy, just gotta share a room.”

Someone claps him on the back in approval and the conversation moves on. Steve not important enough to linger on.

-

“Are you using me?”

Steve looks up from his computer, eyebrows knitting in confusion. His hair is still gelled up, leaving his face completely exposed. “What?”

“Is that what you meant when you said you didn’t want to find a different roommate?” Bucky snaps, letting his bag drop with a thud by his bed. He stays standing, glaring down at Steve. It’s been going around his head all day, _looks like a fuck up_. “You knew I’d help you out with your schoolwork so you could keep playing society hero?”

The punch catches him by surprise and knocks the air out of him. “Fuck you.” Steve storms out without another word, barely managing to grab a jacket. Bucky flops onto his bed, not sure what just happened. He’s not supposed to feel this way, he isn’t even sure where the panic that this means shit to Steve came from. Just that he desperately, painfully, needed Steve to care.

In the morning, Steve still isn’t back, nothing in the room has changed from the previous night. It’s only when Bucky goes to find his jacket does he realize that Steve took his last night in his rush to get out.

He considers calling, or at least texting but after staring at the screen for five minutes he realizes he has to go to class or else he’ll get in trouble. He shoves his phone into his pocket, forgetting to send anything at all.

But Steve is back when Bucky’s out of class, sitting on the edge of his bunk, the jacket on Bucky’s. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky blurts.

“Don’t. Don’t you fucking-” Steve looks up and he looks like he’s drank too much and slept too little. “Just ok yea. I kind of use you. I’m not good at school. And I don’t really feel good enough with my art to get the scholarship but I know I can get out there and do something. So I do. And I don’t know what I’m gonna do next or how I’m gonna get through fucking next week.”

Bucky sits down on his own bunk and looks at him, not sure what to say to that speech. “Steve-”

“I wanted to be your roommate again cause I like you a lot.” He lifts his head and stares defiantly at Bucky, daring him to make something of it. “But you deserve better than me.”

Bucky quickly moves to Steve’s bed and kisses him hard. He knows that while Steve is fragile he won’t break. His legs wrap around Bucky’s waist as they fall back onto the thin mattress. Bucky feels like he’s trying to prove something but he doesn’t know to what or to who. “I’m not a catch.”

“You kidding?” Steve’s lips are red and swollen and he arches up to kiss Bucky again. “Have you looked in a mirror? All dark and mysterious and those abs?” His nails scratch over Bucky’s side. “I’ve licked your abs, I know how amazing they are.”

Bucky groans and buries his head against Steve’s neck. “You’re fucking insane.”

Steve’s entire body shakes when he laughs, still wrapped around Bucky like a limpet so Bucky can feel it. “That’s not a secret. But I think you owe me at least a blow job.”

Bucky kisses his neck and squirms out of his hold to kneel between his thighs.

-

Bucky watches most of the games from the bench, he’s good, but other players are better and he pushes and pushes but they’re not riding on talent

He watches and wonders if he’ll ever make it. If this is what he should even be doing. But he’s played since he was a kid, but back then it was easy to imagine doing nothing else with his life. Before money and life and a cranky roommate who might be a boyfriend.

The first person he tells is his sister who frowns a lot and says he better not be fucking up his life. His mother frowns and says he really needs to think about this.

It’s his friend on the team who brings up Steve. “You doing this for him?” Toro asks bluntly. They’re at one of the captain’s houses and Bucky had to just get away for a moment. He’s not surprised Toro followed, they survived initiation together.

“For who?”

“That punk kid.” Toro leans on the porch railing beside him. “He’s not good for you Bucky. What the fuck is he doing with himself? Getting arrested? Yelling at buildings? Just cause his heart’s in the right place doesn’t make him a hero.”

“He’s not- This isn’t about him,” Bucky says stiffly. “Why the fuck would he have anything to do with me being on the team?”

Toro doesn’t look like he believes him. “Better not Barnes. You gotta good think, don’t need some worthless punk trying to convince you to stick it to the man or something.”

Bucky stares at his drink, not sure what he’s thinking or what he should be thinking. 

-

Somehow Bucky isn’t surprised when he takes Steve to the hospital and finds out he has scurvy. It seems like Steve’s luck with his health. On the way home they stop by the store and Bucky gets a box of clementines which they share as they walk. He makes Steve wear his jacket even though it’s not that cold but Steve seems so weak right then.

“Hey Stevie.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You got plans this summer?”

Steve pauses and looks at him, obviously taken off guard. “Why?”

Bucky carefully peels a fruit and splits it apart into pieces, passing a few to Steve who obligingly eats them. “Talking to parents, they think it’d be best for me to get a place, settle in over the summer, professor might have an internship. Be ready for next year.” He tears into another clementine a little more forcefully than he means and juice spurts over his hands.

“So,” Steve nudges him with a shoulder and loops his arm through Bucky’s. “What’s wrong?”

“Gonna drop the team.”

He expects some kind of immediate protest or argument but for a long minute Steve doesn’t say anything while he eats. “Best thing for you?” He finally asks.

“No lectures about what’s best for me?” Bucky says, wincing when it comes out hard and sharp. Steve isn’t the one he should be lashing at .

“Dunno what’s best for you.” He holds up his hands, fingers spread. The skin between his fingers is almost translucent. “I don’t even know what’s best for me. Who the fuck gets scurvy these days?”

“Didn’t you mention having TB too?” It’s easier to talk about Steve than his own choices.

“Ha nah I think that was Sharon making a bad joke.” He smiles up at Bucky. “I was thinking of sticking around. Maybe take a course or two over the summer, keep focused.” 

Bucky swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry and he stops walking to make sure he has Steve’s full attention. “You wanna do this together? Keep each other going?”

“You better be planning on properly wining and dining me.” Steve smiles warmly, his whole face lighting up. Bucky doesn’t think twice about kissing him right there on the sidewalk, not caring who is around to see. 

“You look good in that jacket by the way, ‘bout time I told you.” He rests his palms on Steve’s chest.

To his surprise, Steve flushes but quickly gets over his embarrassment. “If you ask really nicely I’ll wear it when I fuck you.”

“Yea but what if you overheat in it? Fuck knows what might happen to you.”

Steve punches his shoulder but he’s grinning and grabs Bucky’s hand when they start walking again. 

-

Sharon waits until Steve runs to the bathroom to corner Bucky. They're working on something for a protest or a concert or something else, Bucky isn't sure. He's trying to get through his Econ homework when the book is yanked from his lap. 

"I'll be brief," Sharon says, arms crossed and glaring at him. "It's good to see Steve with someone so if you hurt him I'll hurt you." Bucky nods quickly. "I don't get it but he likes you."

"I like him." Bucky tries not to sound petulant.

"Yea well you're a kid from Podunk, Indiana. Prom king?"

"No," he protests. "I'm not some bad stereotype."

"Neither is Steve, he's not some cliche punk kid, he's not a fucking phase."

Steve clears his throat to get their attention but his expression is carefully schooled to neutral. He interrupted because- Bucky looks right at him. "It's been two years, I know."

Sharon nods matter of factly and returns to Steve's bunk. "Come on Steve, we're not done."

"You're such a perfectionist," Steve frowns and drops down next to her, the two curling comfortably around his computer. Bucky tries to refocus on his homework but he keeps hearing their hushed voices arguing at each other. 

He never thought much about Steve not being good for him but it rattles around his head now. 

-

Steve smiles at him from the hospital bed, they're in the ER, Steve had broken his ankle on an icy step. 

Bucky drops into the chair next to his bed, to wait with Steve for the doctor to let him go. 

"You don't need to be here," Steve says, sounding a bit slurred, probably some kind of pain killer. "You gotta have something better to do than sit here with me."

"Like what?"

"Class. I can get home, don't fuck up cause of me."

Bucky fists his hands tightly, he wants to storm out and he childish, maybe slam the door. But they’re in the hospital and he has to prove a point. “I’m here because I want to be,” he says. “Everyone fucking tells me to ditch you and now you-”

Steve looks so small in the hospital bed even though he’s only there for a broken bone, Bucky can’t be angry. Somehow Steve’s become the most stable part of his life. “I didn’t fall down any steps,” he finally says. “One of your tea- ex-teammates came at me.”

“What.”

He shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “He said to dump you, that I was ruining your life.”

Bucky takes a deep breath, trying not to let his temper overwhelm him. His hands grip the arms of the chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “What’d you do?”

“Told him to fuck off, it’s your life.” He grins smugly. “Shoved me, think it scared him when my bone broke.” He holds out a hand to Bucky, wiggling his fingers. “If you’re not gonna fuck off then at least relax and kiss me.”

“I don’t think normal relationships work like this.” Bucky stares at the offered hand, it’s easier than staring at the rest of Steve.

Steve laughs drily. “Dunno normal. Foster kid, bad upbringing, all those horror stories.” He rolls onto his side, careful of his foot. He suddenly looks more serious and tired. Steve has a year on him, but right then Bucky thinks he probably looks a lot younger. “I wanna be a good guy, save the world, even if it’s just a little corner of it. But don’t think I am really. Don’t know how I’ve kept you.”

“Wanted to stay.”

“Nerd.”

“No one has ever called me that before,” Bucky says, moving the chair closer so he can take Steve’s hand. 

“Just me? I like that. My nerd.” His hand holds onto Bucky’s, gripping tightly as if he might change his mind and make a break for it.

-

“If you really did leave the team cause of me,” Steve says when they’re finally back in the dorm. “I’ll shove you down a flight of stairs. I don’t even care if it gets me arrested again.”

-

Steve starts whining about the crutches the doctor sent him home with after three days. It’s Sharon’s idea to get revenge on him, though in retrospect Bucky doesn’t think it was a mean enough idea.

Steve stares at himself in the mirror, his towel still around his waist and arms crossed over his chest. There’s no way to read his face.

Bucky tries to focus on his textbook, he has an essay due next week that he should have started last week. But his eyes keep darting to Steve, waiting for a reaction. Until Steve’s eyes catch his in the mirror and he blushes when he realizes how easily he’s been found out. 

“You or Sharon?” Steve asks, turning away from the mirror to flop onto Bucky’s bed. His now pink hair falls into his eyes and he moves it with a flick of his head.

“Sharon’s idea,” Bucky says.

“So you did it.” Steve runs his fingers through his hair. The sides are still shaved but the mohawk’s gotten long.

“I wanted to spray paint your crutches pink but they gotta be returned.”

Steve makes a face at the mention of the crutches. “I like it.” He gets up without another word and starts getting dressed. The towel gets tossed aside carelessly, leaving him naked in front of his closet and Bucky knows it’s not an accident. He’s up from his desk in a second, and moving to Steve but he holds up a hand to stop him. “You dyed my hair to prank me. You don’t get to touch yet.”

“But you said you like it,” Bucky whines. He knows he sounds pathetic but Steve is in arms reach and he can’t touch.

“Thought that counts.” He smiles sweetly at Bucky, all fake innocence that anyone who didn’t know him might fall for. “Nothing goes unpunished. Even boyfriends.” He finishes getting dressed, grabbing Bucky’s jacket before disappearing out the door, leaving Bucky alone with homework. He stares at the textbook for a moment before giving up on it, jerking off instead.

-

Bucky finds the letter about academic probation over the summer. Bucky's got an internship at a local CPA's office, it even pays. Steve is in and out, he comes home covered in paint and one day even comes home with a check clutched triumphantly in one hand. 

"Mine," he whispers against Bucky's cheek and he doesn't know if he's talking about him or the money. 

Bucky doesn't bring up the letter until summer is almost over. Steve ducks conversations about school and classes.

"Are you quitting?" Bucky asks flat out when Steve is sprawled on their tiny couch working on his computer. His splurge with the few paychecks he's brought in from selling art. 

"Hm?"

"School."

Steve's eyes don't move from his screen but his shoulders to rigid, like a shell to keep Bucky away. "It's complicated."

Bucky fists his hands tightly. "You're almost done and it's complicated?"

"I'm not good at classrooms, waste of time." 

Bucky goes quiet, he knows there's no arguing with Steve and his opinions. "Seems a waste to throw away all the money and time you've spent to get here."

Steve slumps down and finally sets the computer aside, but doesn't look at Bucky yet. "I'm not like you, I'm not book smart. I can't keep up and so many fucking rules." He sounds broken and defeated, Bucky's never heard that from him before. He wonders if this is the boy left to rot in the system. 

"I can help, you know that."

"Can't ask you for that. I-"

"I'm fucking offering."

Bucky stares at the back of his head until Steve finally looks at him. "You're so weird,” Steve says.

"What?" He blinks back, not sure where the conversation changed.

Steve smiles slowly and shifts so he's not twisted awkwardly to look at Bucky. "You would be happy with a nine to five, pretty girl, family dog, still wearing your letterman in twenty years." His smile falters.

"You wear it more than me,” Bucky says. He’s not sure he wants to know what Steve is thinking. 

"Huh. I'll wear it to graduation if I survive." Steve grins. 

Bucky finally eases and moves to the couch, stretching next to him. "Deal.” Steve’s fingers touch his cheek and slide around to the back of his neck. Bucky doesn’t need any more encouragement to lean in to kiss him. He knows he doesn’t need to be gentle with Steve, no matter how fragile he can be but he likes this. Just knowing they can be together.

Steve pulls apart slowly, his eyes half closed. “Fuck can’t believe you make me agree to this shit.”

“Oh no, getting you to graduate with a degree. What a jerk.” He tucks his head against Steve’s neck. Bucky’s pretty sure he could fall asleep like this, listening to Steve’s breathing.

-

Bucky isn’t surprised when Steve gets pneumonia in their final year. It seems almost expected with Steve, something big to get in the way. Bucky sits next to him in the hospital and by now he even recognizes some of the nurses. Sharon shows up and it’s sort of like old times, Bucky and Sharon staring at each other over Steve on his hospital bed.

But they’ve done this enough they’re sort of like friends.

When Steve is awake he whines about going home. Sharon puts her feet in his lap and Bucky holds his hand. Steve still frowns at them both but stops fighting. “Fucks,” he grumbles but then he laughs sharply. “In sickness or in health I guess.”

“Steve I am never marrying your skinny ass,” Sharon says. “Not nearly enough curves for my taste.” Steve sticks his tongue out at her.

“It’s ok, I don’t mind your skinny ass,” Bucky says. “Even if it does break easy.”

“Ew.”

“Hey!”

Bucky laugh sas Steve tries to weakly smack him and he easily catches both of Steve’s hands, half sprawling across him to do so. He has homework to do, and he brought along some of Steve’s work, all piled neatly beside the bed. It doesn’t feel as important as it used to. Doesn’t compare to the feeling of Steve’s pulse where Bucky’s fingers rest on his wrist. 

-

The hat falls somewhere in the kitchen and the robe gets torn between the living room and the bedroom. Steve hisses at him that that thing cost ninety dollars but Bucky kisses him to shut him up. It’s a semeter late but Steve’s diploma is set next to Bucky’s before Bucky shoves him firmly nto bed.

“I beleive I was promised a jacket,” he says, getting it from the closet before joining Steve. It’s still too big, hanging limply over his bony shoulders But Steve smirks and spreads his legs.

“I think I at least get a blow job before you get anything.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and bites playfully at his hip. “That wasn’t the deal but fine.”

“you can’t resist me.” Steve rolls his hips Bucky can’t think of anything witty to say so takes him in his mouth and it’s enough to shut Steve up too.

-

“I expected you to disappear,” Steve says quietly. Bucky has a job and Steve bounces between art and protest though his hair is back to blond.

“Where’d I go?” They share a one bedroom apartment and even still the rent is high and they don’t have much. Getting out of school didn’t make Steve suddenly healthier and they both know no matter what they do, it looms over them.

“Don’t know. Just- not staying with me.” Steve stares at his hands, his fingertips are black from charcoal. Someone, a friend of a friend of a teacher Steve had owns a gallery and Steve’s working out a deal to show some pieces.

“You think I’d dump you after dragging your ass through college?”

“Hey.”

Bucky kisses him, not caring if his neat work clothes get stained, they always end up with signs of Steve on them no matter what he does. “Fuck no.”

Steve smiles, ducking his head as if suddenly shy around him. “I- thanks.”

“Thank me after I try to make dinner and not burn down the apartment.” It gets him a laugh and a smudge of charcoal on his cheek.


End file.
